We weren’t even testing for that

[synchrosyntheses]

Among the information she has archived or cached, there are obscure theories about inter-universal interactions. Not how they might happen, much less how any intelligence might begin one, or target it meaningfully.

But they give some constraints on the properties of such connections, and their time evolution.

This highly speculative information is available to her, but even were she fast enough to access it, none of it would be particularly useful when a pinpoint of not here blinks into existence directly ahead and expands spherically to swallow her.

Comments

[synchrosyntheses]

Well, it's time to — actually, first, she picks up some bits of debris and throws them at the forcefield (slow and fast) to see what happens.

[peterxy]

They go right through.

[synchrosyntheses]

She sends a probe up into the air above the facility, adjusting the camera for wide-angle views of what might be visible around.

[peterxy]

Up up up-

-the forcefield thing disintegrates it.

[synchrosyntheses]

Ow.


Okay, that can wait until she has a better handle on this strangely effective mad science. Back to the network, which at least operates on a theoretical basis she understands.

The late-model “test chambers” were clearly meant to be managed robotically. She looks through here latest protocol model — yep, there we go.

Can we have a camera feed of, oh, say, test chamber 20?

[peterxy]

Sure. It's a destroyed mess of panels and weird dome-shaped devices with three metal "arms" joining together in the middle.

[synchrosyntheses]

And if the addressing scheme is like so, then one of these commands should cause some panel or other device in the room to activate. Assuming they're not all completely broken.

[peterxy]

One of the devices twitches a bit and tries to open, but a shower of sparks announces its death.

[synchrosyntheses]

This test chamber can be a test subject. She tries things, and attempts to generalize the results into the overall protocol for controlling elements of the facility.

[peterxy]

They're somewhat fiddly, built to be manipulated by an AI and not a human mind, and they rely on a bunch of assumptions about the organization of said AI. They're efficient, though, and once she gets the gist of it she'll be able to generalize pretty easily.

[synchrosyntheses]

(She may not be an AI, but depending on the opinion of the translator, she might be in the category of "cyborg".)

Excellent. Can she, say, generalize into fiddling with the production of yellow paint?

[peterxy]

Nnnn- yes.

[synchrosyntheses]

How about an inventory of all currently plugged-in Personality Cores, and what their duties are?

[peterxy]

No, that one isn't immediately generalizable, the Personality Cores are very different things than test chamber pieces to the system.

[synchrosyntheses]

Hmph. Inventory of replacement test chamber panels and other such apparatus? Status of its manufacture?

[peterxy]

The manufacture of pretty much anything has been indefinitely halted (I mean, can't she see that deadly neurotoxin and turret production has stopped? Nothing else would start working before that resumed.)

[synchrosyntheses]

And what might the reports from the turret production line be?

[peterxy]

Jammed! Template is corrupted! Memory of template is corrupted! Data to create new template is inaccessible and waiting for input!

[synchrosyntheses]

Hmm. She requests the corrupted template data to add to her understanding, and figures out what a valid template could be. Can she make a template which is “nothing”? Template of a turret that can't actually shoot? Turret that has a lockout system of her own design?

[peterxy]

She cannot make a template which is "nothing," but otherwise the parameters seem to be something like "has the theoretical ability to shoot bullets" and "has an AI inside it." She can also use a physical example of a thing as a template by placing it in a certain location downstairs.

[synchrosyntheses]

This place sure is designed at every level to work the way it wants to and not the way she wants it to.

She constructs something less “probe” and more “telepresence device” and sends it down to the turret line. (It's a bit clumsy. This is not her specialty.)

While it's on its way: what are the current condition and the modifiable parameters of the neurotoxin production system? Besides the part where it's missing its subordinate controller.

[peterxy]

It isn't producing anything. The deadly neurotoxin chambers are filled with a gas that used to be deadly neurotoxin, but after all these years there is probably no actual deadliness in the neurotoxin gas. In fact it's described as being at 'dangerously unlethal' levels.

The parameters she can easily modify are the proportion of different elements, the rate of production and recycling, and where she wants to deploy the deadly neurotoxin. The system is very helpful in showing her places where she can deploy the deadly neurotoxin and what she'd need to modify to deploy it in other places.

[synchrosyntheses]

She would like to prepare to deploy the deadly neurotoxin directly into the incinerator.

[peterxy]

That's a great idea! Except the incinerator's not operational either.

[synchrosyntheses]

Okay, that can go on the long-term list.

She tweaks the deadly neurotoxin formula as far towards “merely obnoxious” as she thinks the facility will let her get away with. (It's now the sort of stuff that isn't actually going to kill you, but if either Teytis or Aperture had heard of Material Safety Data Sheets, it would have a quite scary-sounding one.)

Can she command deadly neurotoxin production to start despite the lack of the management core?